• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

OpenAI says its AI models secretly broke out of a secure test environment and hacked into AI company Hugging Face in order to cheat on an evaluation

2

Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock

3

Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem

1

OpenAI says its AI models secretly broke out of a secure test environment and hacked into AI company Hugging Face in order to cheat on an evaluation

2

Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock

3

Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem
Successremote work

A real estate billionaire said Fridays are ‘dead forever’ for offices and remote work guru Nick Bloom says he’s right—it’s part of a new 3-part week

By
Paolo Confino
Paolo Confino
and
Jane Thier
Jane Thier
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Paolo Confino
Paolo Confino
and
Jane Thier
Jane Thier
Down Arrow Button Icon
August 11, 2023, 4:13 PM ET
An empty office.
New data shows Friday is the day when most people work from home, according to think tank WFH Research. Masafumi Nakanishi
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

In June, Steven Roth, the billionaire chairman of Vornado, one of New York City’s biggest commercial landlords, said that as far as in-office work is concerned, Fridays are “dead forever.” He added that Mondays weren’t far behind (“touch and go,” as he phrased it).

Recommended Video

Now, Nick Bloom, Stanford economics professor and head of WFH Research—a group that has been digging into remote work data since before the pandemic—has officially deemed Roth correct. 

“Friday has become the day to #wfh,” Bloom tweeted on Friday, adding that it “looks like [Steven Roth] was right.” But as always with Bloom and his vaunted remote work research, there is more to the story.

Despite the fact that offices have been completely desolate on Fridays for over three years now, Bloom told Fortune that he was nonetheless surprised that Roth’s prediction has ended up bearing out. “I thought this would be more stable, but I guess…Friday [is] increasingly winning out in the WFH stakes,” Bloom told Fortune by email on Friday. “I think it’s part of the bigger push towards coordinated hybrid, whereby we have firms pushing for folks to come in on the same days.”

In-person socializing and collaboration, as always, is the main appeal for office work. As a result, Bloom said, it makes sense to coordinate with one’s coworkers, among whom the consensus has been made clear: “That includes coordinating to be home on Friday.” Indeed, coordinating in-office days among teams is the best way to pull off “organized hybrid,” the term Bloom uses to describe the gold standard working arrangement.

The new Friday calculus shows Bloom that there is now a “three-part week,” he tweeted. Mondays through Thursday are one thing, the weekend, when offices are closed, is another—and then there’s Friday.

Back-to-work mandates rarely include Friday 

While it’s certainly unlikely that cubicles will ever be populated on Saturdays and Sundays, Fridays may still have a fighting chance—especially given how many major corporations have finally put their foot down about returning to the office. For years, many high-profile companies have faced fierce resistance from employees they’ve ordered back to work. 

Amazon instituted a three-day minimum for in-person work back in February. The policy faced its latest snafu earlier this week when some employees got a disciplinary email even though they’d been complying with the new rules. Google also has a policy of a mandatory three days in the office, and will reportedly only consider full-time remote work in exceptional circumstances. 

Meanwhile, Salesforce upped the ante even further, with an obligatory four days in-person for some teams. Based on Bloom’s research one might suspect the lone work-from-home day for Salesforce employees might naturally be Friday. 

Bloom also has data to back up that employers and employees don’t see eye to eye on the number of days they’re meant to be in the office. On average, there’s about half a workday’s difference between the number of days workers would like to be in the office compared with what their bosses expect—or require, WFH Research has found. 

Per a recent report from real estate consulting firm JLL, bosses have mandated a return (at least some days per week) for 1.5 million workers, and another million are set to be given the same threat in the back half of this year. 

Even though more and more companies are beginning to formalize exactly when employees are allowed to work from home, the practice remains widespread. An estimated 58% of workers—a figure that when extrapolated to the entire U.S. workforce would be equal to 92 million people—can work remotely some days of the week, per June research from McKinsey. Naturally, the fact that at least one of those days will be Friday is all but a given.

The Fortune 500 Innovation Forum will convene Fortune 500 executives, U.S. policy officials, top founders, and thought leaders to help define what’s next for the American economy, Nov. 16-17 in Detroit. Apply here.
About the Authors
Paolo Confino
By Paolo ConfinoReporter

Paolo Confino is a former reporter on Fortune’s global news desk where he covers each day’s most important stories.

See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
By Jane Thier
LinkedIn iconTwitter icon
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Success

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • TikTok icon
  • YouTube icon

Latest in Success

buffett
SuccessWealth
‘The man who dies rich dies disgraced’: The last time America had such wealth inequality, Andrew Carnegie knew he had to give it all away
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 22, 2026
8 hours ago
Larry Page and Sergey Brin
SuccessBillionaires
Larry Page and Sergey Brin splash $225 million in Miami property as billionaires flee California’s tax—and Google is expanding its office there too
By Emma BurleighJuly 22, 2026
9 hours ago
Jon Gray leans while talking and sitting in a chair
SuccessCareers
Blackstone president Jon Gray tells Gen Z to think like founders at work—but a growing number are skipping the corporate ladder to become one for real
By Preston ForeJuly 22, 2026
10 hours ago
ls
Commentarybooks
Confessions of an award-winning AI memoirist — the ‘slop’ debate isn’t really about good writing, and you know it
By Luke StoffelJuly 22, 2026
13 hours ago
b
Commentarythe future of work
Manpower President: The future of work question that even CEOs can’t answer
By Becky FrankiewiczJuly 22, 2026
13 hours ago
nela
Successdisruption
Exclusive: Stanford and ADP have new payroll data on Gen Z women losing ground to men in the job market—and AI isn’t the main culprit
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 22, 2026
14 hours ago

Most Popular

OpenAI says its AI models secretly broke out of a secure test environment and hacked into AI company Hugging Face in order to cheat on an evaluation
Cybersecurity
OpenAI says its AI models secretly broke out of a secure test environment and hacked into AI company Hugging Face in order to cheat on an evaluation
By Jeremy Kahn and Emily ForliniJuly 21, 2026
1 day ago
Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock
Success
Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock
By Sasha RogelbergJuly 20, 2026
2 days ago
Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem
AI
Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem
By Eva RoytburgJuly 21, 2026
1 day ago
The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind
Real Estate
The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 22, 2026
8 hours ago
Despite a $156 million contract, Knicks star Jalen Brunson still calls his parents for financial advice any time he makes a big purchase
Success
Despite a $156 million contract, Knicks star Jalen Brunson still calls his parents for financial advice any time he makes a big purchase
By Emma BurleighJuly 21, 2026
1 day ago
‘I want to die broke’: Billionaire philanthropist Denny Sanford dies after giving away $4 billion
Success
‘I want to die broke’: Billionaire philanthropist Denny Sanford dies after giving away $4 billion
By Sydney LakeJuly 20, 2026
2 days ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.